Sprint today posted its earnings from the fourth quarter of 2012 and reported revenue of $9 billion, and a net loss of $1.32 billion, which represents a loss of $0.44 per share. In the same quarter a year-ago, Sprint recorded a net loss of $1.3 billion, representing a loss of $0.43 a share.

The company noted that its cumulative 2012 smartphone sales came in at nearly 20 million. What's more, they noted that they sold over 6.6 million iPhones over the past 12 months, with 40% of those sales going to new customers. For the quarter, Sprint sold 2.2 million iPhones, representing a new quarterly record for the Kansas-based operator. During the 2011 holiday quarter, Sprint sold 1.8 million iPhones, marking a 22% year-over-year increase for 2012.

Doing some basic math with respect to Sprint's quarterly iPhone sales, we see that 33% of all their smartphone sales were iPhones. That sounds rather impressive until we compare it to iPhone sales on Verizon, where Apple's popular smartphone accounted for approximately 63% of smartphone sales during the 2012 holiday quarter. And on AT&T, remember that iPhone sales accounted for about 85% of Ma Bell's total smartphone sales. Nevertheless, iPhone demand on Sprint is clearly rising - in spite of claims from analysts and pundits that iPhone demand is waning.

Sprint noted in its press release that it now has LTE coverage in 58 cities across the country with 170 more cities expected to get the LTE treatment in the coming months.

Yoni Heisler is a technology writer and Mac nerd who's been using Apple products for well over 21 years. He actively covers a wide variety of Apple topics, from legal news and rumors to current events and even Apple related comedy and history.